


Fallacy by omission

by TheMusicalCC



Category: Ghostbusters (Comics), Ghostbusters - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Egon got an intervention, F/M, Just... here, i don't know man just, ish?, set in "Crossing Over" before they get into the portal I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-28 22:53:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16251443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMusicalCC/pseuds/TheMusicalCC
Summary: "She may have a bunch of reasons to stay, but you're the reason she's going to end up leaving!"





	Fallacy by omission

"What are you gonna do?" Egon didn't reply, eyes stubbornly set on the Mega trap he was working on; Peter's temper, already short, went up in smoke and he grabbed him by the collar roughly. Dragging a man of Egon's size out of a chair was no simple feat and yet Ray and Winston looked on in astonishment as he did "I said-  _what_ are you gonna  _do_?!" 

 Egon's arms hung to his sides listlessly and although his eyes were set on Venkman, it was like he couldn't actually  _see_  anything. 

"You make it seem as though there is  _anything_  I can do" he finally muttered. 

"Don't give me that!" Peter shook him "She may have a bunch of reasons to stay, but you're the reason she's going to end up leaving!" 

"That's not fair" Winston muttered, Peter turned to him for a moment. 

"Oh, you think  _that's_ not fair?" His grasp around Egon's collar loosened slightly, but not enough to set him free "Imagine never fully knowing where you stand with the person you care about the most because he's got his head so far up his ass that he can't even figure his own feelings out" 

"The decision of whether she leaves or not is Janine's, not ours" Egon cut him, his tone flat "And I would advice you let _her_ make it"

"Peter, we're all worried she might leave" Ray intervened "But this isn't helping"

"So you're just gonna sit on your hands and shut your mouth?" Peter growled, releasing him with a jerk. Egon straightened his glasses, eyes set elsewhere.  

"Yes"

"And what if she chooses to leave, Egon?" Winston asked softly "Are you just going to watch her walk away?" 

Egon's eyes set on him, dull and tired.

"And _what_ would you have me _do_?" his voice was beginning to shake, as well as his hands. The control he had over himself, the control he'd grappled with all he had since Janine had broken news to them that Peck had offered her a job and she was considering taking it finally beginning to slip. He supported them on the edge of the workbench to dissimulate "Ask her to stay?"

"Uh- _Yes?!_ " Peter said, as if it were obvious. Egon scoffed at this openly, trying to get back to what he'd been working on.

"I can't. And you know it"

"Oh, you could" Peter continued "But that would imply showing care and _Lord knows_ that is impossible for you"

"You think I don't  _know_   that?" Egon turned to him, his expression full of rage. Winston had only heard him raise his voice like that a couple of times and it never got any less imposing "You think I don't know this is what I  _deserve-_ what I've brought upon myself?! You think I don't know what I am?!" the end of the sentence was marked by his fist impacting the work table with enough strength to make everything on it leap "It's _exactly_ why I can't. If you don't want her to leave then tell her yourself!"

"It's not me she saw and immediately took the job, genius!"

"So I am to use that to make her stay?" Egon narrowed his eyes at him coldly.

"Worked fine the first time!"

"You have no right-"

"Never done. Never will. Yet here we are, what are you gonna do?"

"Let her go" Ray said softly, Peter recognized the tone and was confused for a second. It was the tone Ray used with students when guiding them to a right answer without outright telling them.

"I don't think anyone can ' _Let'_ Janine do something or not when she's made up her mind, it's not..." Egon sighed, running a hand through his hair. Then, softly "...yes"

"Why?"

He let out a tired half-laugh, considering leaving the conversation there and just returning to work as if nothing happened, but he said it, because his chest might just burst if he didn't say it out loud. 

"...because I love her" 

He half-expected to hear jaws dropping around him at the declaration. What he heard instead was Peter breath out in exasperation and Winston mutter ' _Unbelievable'_. 

"Well, took you long enough to figure that one out, man" Ray said, a bit of exasperation seeping into his tone.

"You _idiot_ " Peter hissed.

"You're one to talk" he replied, regaining some control over his voice and expression "I remember when you let Dana go, Peter, and I never asked, but I knew-" 

"That's different!" Peter looked like he half-wished to slap him just for bringing that up "Dana and I... she didn't want to stay. She didn't want any of this" he motioned for the surroundings, the discarded electronics, the occult books "But Janine? She's been here, she's been part of it from the start! She's part of us- she's part of _you_! You think you're just gonna soldier on and move on without your heart?" Egon looked aghast that Peter would describe her like that, but he couldn't rebuke it "You wanna talk about how _I_ felt when Dana left? I told myself it was fine. We could stay in touch, we could be part of each others' life still- both times I was the first to realize it was more painful than it was relief. So I cut the cord as cleanly as I could. And you know what? It was _killing_ me! It still is! You think I want that for you? For both of you?!"  

"I-" Egon started. He looked like he hadn't considered Peter's anger hadn't been as much about Janine leaving as it was because she'd hurt, and so would he. So would all of them, honestly. Egon had considered it necessary, something akin to growing pains- all for her sake. All so she wouldn't find herself once again bound by affection to someone who wasn't sure of how to not hurt her gentle heart, but the idea that years in the future, they would still suffer for it, the way Peter did over Dana, was just-

"You wanna give her freedom?" Winston cut in "Fine. Go ahead, but listen here- you have to tell her at least. It's not fair otherwise. It's not setting her free if you're lying to her!"

"I'm not lying" Egon's voice was full of badly concealed guilt. He had, quite possibly, found a way to make everything he was doing sound perfectly logical and less ethically questionable in his own head, but was having a hard time remembering what that was at the moment "It's... it's in her best interest" he tried "I've hurt her enough already- I'll just hurt her again- I want her to be happy!" he looked to Ray for support, but found his friend glaring at him. 

"If you want her to be happy" Ray said slowly, his tone that of someone speaking to a particularly dumb dog "Then  _make_  it happen"

Egon stared one moment longer, before the three of them began shooing him, hurrying him off before he could think of any excuse to not do it, directing him downstairs to where Janine was still reviewing some of the mechanics with their inter-dimensional guests. Three sets of eyes watched him go and three sets of shoulders slacked at the same time in relief when they saw him disappear through the door.

"What she sees in him, I'll never know" Winston breathed. As Peter lit himself a cigarette.

"What can I say, he's not bad-looking and he's got _that_ voice. Makes perfect sense."

"And he's a genius, I guess"

"For a genius, sometimes he's such a  _moron_ "

Both Peter and Winston looked at Ray's sullen expression in surprise.

**Author's Note:**

> So back when the first issue of IDW's "Crossing Over" came out and it was revealed that Peck was trying to get Janine to leave the firehouse and become a liaison for PCOC, I thought they were gonna give it some weight outside a couple of panels in the next issue... my bad. 
> 
> Anyway, it did give me the idea for this setting, so I wrote it back then, which I guess accounts for the lack of important themes like Egon being apparently hounded down by death. I didn't know how it'd start or how it'd end, but I had this scene clear in my mind, so I wrote it down. Decided to polish it up for posting just today.


End file.
